Pasted from comments I made in another forum:
I live in Honduras. Though I have my own car, most of my friends don't and are forced to take the chicken buses from place to place. They hate chicken buses. I hate chicken buses. Everybody I've spoken to, including the drivers of chicken buses, hate the damn chicken buses.
People don't buy 20-year-old beat-up American school buses for the joy of it. They buy them because they're too poor to purchase new ones. They don't paint them garish colors because they're proud of their work or their mode of tranportation. They paint them because it gets more customers. And they don't drive them like bus drivers up north. They drive them like they're drunk of high, which often they are.
If you ever come within a few feet of a head-on collision with a bus; if you've ever seen a guy walking out of an Esso with a bottle of rum in his hand then climb into the driver's seat; if you've ever been close enough to a bus to see the wire, cord, and duct tape holding the undercarriage together; if you've ever seen dead bodies in a pickup truck jammed under a school bus; then you'd think twice before taking those delightful little chicken buses.
Here's some information: Anybody who lives in CA and can afford to not take the chicken bus, doesn't take the chicken bus. Whenever someone who's really poor has a little extra money to ride a better, they don't ride the chicken bus either. When you come through Central America and you feel like having some special "cultural experience," don't ride the damn chicken bus! Spend a little more money and get a coach bus. At the very least, get on the cheap bus through the front door and got a good look at the driver. If he looks drunk, he probably is drunk, and you're better off waiting for the next bus.
On another note, why are wealthy people always romanticising the things poor people are forced to do? Every time I meet another gringo traveler in Central America, they're always saying, "We slept in thatch huts with no fan! It was great! And then we went to a disco that was just an old abandoned house! It was so much fun! And we rode on the chicken buses where we banged our kneecaps a hundred times! I feel like I really got to know the local culture!" Comments like that are usually followed with, "No, I hardly speak any Spanish at all." If you've ever made any of those statements, here's my recommendation: Eating street-vendor food and riding chicken buses might gain you some cred with your fellow backpackers, but to the locals it just makes you look goofy. If you want to experience local culture, learn conversational Spanish and strike up conversations with every local you meet. The Central Americans on the luxury charter buses aren't any more or less "authentic" than the ones on the chicken buses.
I live on a dirt road that's the only route between La Paz and Lajamani, Honduras. That means I get a lot of beat up old buses driving past my house (about 20 a day). And there's a small gas station 100 yards from my house, and most of the buses stop there for diesel. I've seen a hell of a lot of drunk bus drivers lean on their horn for minutes at a time and then get out shouting at the lady that lives there. I've also seen a lot of bald tires, screaming air brakes, bent axles, and bent frames (have you seen a bus where the tires and the chassis point in different directions?). And I've seen a whole lot of duct tape. So I guess that all makes me a little bitter.
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And what's this with saying chicken buses are "part of the culture"? Since when does that make them good? Cockfights are a big part of Central American culture. Are you going to tell us to go watch the cockfights? Prostitution is a big part of the culture, too. Should we go check out the whorehouses, just like many of the chicken-bus-riding locals do? How about drinking all day long? Slapping the single girls on the ass? Slapping your wife? These are all the parts of the culture down here. Why don't we try them out too?
My point is that just because something is "iconic" or "part of the culture" doesn't mean that it's a good thing or even that the locals appreciate it. Sometimes iconic parts of the culture are very bad aspects of the country that the locals wish they could do away with.
I can understand how many people view chicken bus rides as an adventure or an extra-authentic experience. I wouldn't look down on a foriegner who rode chicken buses for fun. I hope you can understand how, as a resident, I've come to hate the run-down, badly maintained and badly driven buses that line Central American streets.
Every time I visit Guate I always travel on chicken buses; is fun and some times there is no choice. I haven't been robbed yet (knock on wood) but I don't trust in those shuttles companies.
Crime is every where so if you get robbed that's becuase it was your time to get robbed; not becuase you're ridding on chicken buses.
As long as the thieves don't hurt you is okay, is only money that they'll take.
I hate the chicken bues myself but some love them. I was almost killed some years back when the rear wheel came off one headed down the mountain to Pana. It isnt the robbers but the bad condition of the buses that made me stop using them. And yes the driver is often drunk.high or both. Love how they look but wont get on them anymore. For chicken bus photos see my website wolfcalls.com
i actually couldn't really afford to travel as much if i had to take shuttles everywhere, and i don't want to. i'm not going to travel less or not at all because of this. every guatemalan i traveled with took the chicken buses with me. i know there are better alternatives, i'm sure the other guatemalans i traveled with would have loved to take the more expensive alternatives if they had money, but they didn't and i didn't either.
Endless Summer you make some very valid points.....I too wonder why tourists think it more "authentic" to do the things that most locals are desperately trying to rise above....some young Europeans go so far as to walk around without shoes with unwashed clothes, hair and bodies thinking it somehow makes them viewed more sympathetically by the local poor. The poor locals who I know make comments about why are such tourists so crazy and/ or lazy.....if they can afford airfare, they can afford shoes and soap. When I tell them the tourists are trying to seem friendlier to the local poor, they just laugh at me...who in their right mind , poor or not, actually WANTS to walk around shoeless and dirty unless they are too poor to do otherwise.....pura loca.
I think Endless Summer's post was excellent. Someone needs to try and debunk the truly ridiculous game of who can rough it the most, a practice that is both sad and silly at the same time.
Giving the OP the benefit of the doubt, I think his main point is a fair one.
It isn't that the people riding the first class buses are less "real"... can't you understand that many visitors are more interested in the lives of the poor? Riding chicken buses is an excellent way to meet people that a visitor might not meet otherwise, to see a little bit of what it's like to be a poorer citizen of Guatemala. Living with a host family gave me a chance to see what a moderately-well-off Guatemalan household is like in some ways (I know that any family regularly taking in students doesn't live the same way they would if they didn't have students) and the chicken bus gives me a view of another side of life.
I don't think anyone would say that all parts of a culture are "good"--the words it seems like Endless Summer is trying to put in the mouths of people like myself. But it's a rookie tourist mistake to start criticizing things we know nothing about. Would you like it if a tourist who's never ridden a chicken bus came on and started complaining about how awful they are? Or would you agree, because that supports your viewpoint? Endless Summer's comments are aimed at a very specific cohort of tourists. Obviously the thousands of people who come to Guatemala to study Spanish don't fit in, because you talk about these people not even knowing conversational Spanish. I don't understand, though, why you end your post saying you'd never look down on a foreigner who rode the chicken buses for fun, because as far as I can see, that's what your post is about.
I do ride chicken buses, although I could afford to take Pullmans and the occasional shuttle. I stopped taking shuttles when I realized what poor value I was getting for my money. Pullmans don't go everywhere. And once I did get off a chicken bus, because the driver seemed violent and I didn't feel safe. I'd do it again--get off--if I thought the driver was drunk or high or driving erratically. I'm not completely stupid.
Another element that's missing here: many people don't understand American culture, especially that of college students and young people. I'm not saying it's good or bad, it just is. Many Americans won't pay more (Pullman) if they can get it for less (chicken bus). Many college students have a thing about trying to distance themselves from a wealthy upbringing (hence the walking-around-dirty thing; people who are rising above a poorer background don't need to do it). And the no-shoes-and-cell-phone style is totally normal in certain parts of the country. As long as people aren't showing disrespect in some way--such as walking around town shirtless or going into churches barefoot--I just have to roll my eyes. Again, that doesn't excuse any bad behavior or refute any statements necessarily--it's just that "culture" goes both ways.
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